What once ensured that I sat at a table next to the teacher is now posted, Monday through Friday.

I've contributed to perhaps the best humor compilation I've ever read. Available now on Amazon!

My second chapbook, "The Second Book of Pearl: The Cats" is now available as either a paper chapbook or as a downloadable item. See below for the Pay Pal link or click on its cover just to the right of the newest blog post to download to your Kindle, iPad, or Nook. Just $3.99 for inspired tales of gin, gambling addiction and inter-feline betrayal.

My first chapbook, I Was Raised to be A Lert is in its third printing and is available both via the PayPal link below and on smashwords! Order one? Download one? It's all for you, baby!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Hey, Look! The Floor is Clean!

Mary’s at my house today.

And the dust bunnies are running scared.

We set it up last week.

“I can give you a discounted rate,” she had said to me.

“Are you kidding? And not be able to hold my head up around the neighborhood? I insist upon paying the household help a living wage.”

We laugh.

“So what do you want done?”

I’d been thinking about it for weeks. “In order of appearance,” I say, “Bathroom, kitchen, front stairway. Anything after that is gravy. Hairy, hairy gravy.”

I can hear her nodding. “You’ve got one dusty house,” she says.

It’s true. At just a little over a hundred and eight years old, the party the previous owners threw for the signing of the armistice still rumbles through the over-head vents.

“What about the cats?”

“They’re supposed to clean themselves,” I say. “Don’t let the little buggers talk you into anything.”

“No,” she says. “I mean will they be okay with me coming in like this?”

“Liza Bean has spoken of nothing else.” I pause. “Don’t lend her any money no matter how many times she asks. And don’t let her mix you any drinks.”

“No loans to Liza Bean Bitey – “

“—of the Minneapolis Biteys—“ I interject.

“—for any reason. Check.”

“And don’t take anything she mixes for you, either.”

Mary sighs. “There go my plans for the afternoon part of the job,” she mumbles.

“I’m sorry. What’s that?”

“Nothing!” she chirps. “No drinking with the cat, no loaning the cat money. Anything else?”

“Yes,” I smile. “Remember how you made the bed all pretty at the house in Edina?”

Mary and I regularly clean houses together, and I’d been witness recently to a spectacular, showroom-level bed-pillow display on her part that had left me shaking my head with admiration.

The woman is a craftsman.

“Of course.”

“Can you do that for me?”

I hear her smiling again. “And would the lady of the house care for a chocolate on her pillow as well?”

“That would be divine,” I murmur. “Thank you so much.”

“My pleasure,” she says. “And with that, madam, I curtsey in your general direction.”

Truly one of life's great luxuries. I have a very nice lady who comes once a month to do the things I can no longer handle on my own. When she leaves the house smells so good the high stays with me for days. I no longer have cats so there is no temptation for her to indulge in afternoon cocktails with the pets.

i cleaned houses for years with one of my best friends. we used to talk about if we could just afford to hire someone, or each other, to clean our own houses, how lovely it would be.i actually laughed at the line about the cats are supposed to clean themselves. giggle!

Wow. I'm impressed. Obviously, your cats are much more better behaved than mine. All I put on our bed is three lousy toss pillows, and our cats consider it a challenge. There is no rest in their hairy little butts until all three pillows have been vanquished to the floor. They push 'em like bulldozers, and they toss them in the air with their heads like soccer balls. With great energy and much exuberance. When their task is complete, they collapse on "their" bed, satisfied that they've reclaimed it. No way they'd let Mary do a pillow "make-pretty" on the bed. And don't even get me started on the chocolate ...

Good for you. Must be awesome to come home to a clean house that you didn't have to clean.

Cats may be self-cleaning, but the fur they lose in shedding season never sees their tongues. It's everywhere, rolling into corners, clumping on the mats, floating in the air, sticking to pant legs ...

I'd like someone to clean my house. My condition would be that they don't feed the cats and don't tidy. Anything in the wrong place would have to stay in the wrong place - just be lifted up and dusted under. It would all have to remain exactly as chaotic as it always is - only with fewer germs.

Howdy Pearl,How are y'all? “And would the lady of the house care for a chocolate on her pillow as well?” Well, hopefully it is real chocolate and not that glorified wax that passes for real chocolate, over there, y'all.And make sure it really is um chocolate on your pillow...I shall leave it at that.Take good care, eh :)Your shy, humble fan, Gary, co-starring Penny the Jack Russell dog and modest internet star! Arf! Arf!